Page 39 of Anatomy of a Killer
‘Are you really okay?’ The driver again.
‘Couldn’t you drive faster?’
‘I’m doing fifty as it is.’
And I’m doing my head in. I slide my hands beneath my thighs; my whole body is shaking. Behind my closed eyelids is Eva, and alongside her, the realisation of how everything can change in a few seconds. A conclusion I’d reached a while ago. I can’t help burp– a mouthful of sour fermented whisky from last night. My plan was different. I just wanted to drink a tiny sip with Ludwig, to soothe his conscience, then steal away secretly. I’d have got home in time. What now?
Where we live is a 30 kph zone; I’m going up the wall. I beg the driver to let me out here, two streets away from our house. I don’t even hear the price he mentions; I just shove a twenty in his hand, leap out of the cab and start running again.
Please, I didn’t mean. . .
I’m throbbing with pain and tension, exploding with speculation. What if. . . ?
I run faster, already feeling for the unfamiliar key. The jeep is on the corner of a street, around two hundred metres from our house. Now, in the snow and sunshine, its redness is crying out for attention, whereas I didn’t notice it yesterday evening, when Ludwig and I drove past it after our visit to Brandner.
Please. . .
I’m still running when I point the key at the vehicle to open the central locking.
I yank open the hatch to the boot.
He flinches, blinks. He’s still alive.
I smile and say, ‘Hello, Jakob. Now we can chat in peace.’
Recap:
On Thursday, 9 November 2017, around 9 p.m., an unnamed suspect was arrested at home in the connection with the ribbon murders, a series of killings stretching back a number of years. This message arrived at exactly 21.24 in the editorial office, where the journalist Jakob Wesseling was doing overtime writing another article. Like an animal advancing on its prey before the rest of the pack, he immediately seized on the topic, not without sensing the possibility of being promoted to deputy chief editor. Although the police were still keeping the identity of the suspect under wraps, Jakob knew exactly who he had to call at HQ to get hold of the name. A name he couldn’t publish immediately– in part to protect his source– but which gave him a huge research advantage over his rivals. And Jakob did his research. This was going to be massive. A reportage, a glimpse behind the scenes, shedding light on the depths of the souls of those involved, a special spread or even an entire special issue, and he, as a much sought-after expert, would be invited on to TV talk shows and podcasts as soon as the anonymity of the suspect was lifted. Who was Professor Walter Lesniak? How could a killer raise a child? Why hadn’t his daughter been aware of anything? Or did she know about it, maybe? What secrets was she hiding?
Jakob, for whom it was a doddle to find out Lesniak’s address. Whose daughter now lived a very secluded life there. Jakob began watching her. Whenever anyone rang the doorbell, she would send them away, and she herself only rarely left the house, at most to go shopping. Moreover, in the first couple of weeks after her father’s arrest she was still blonde. He felt it would be pointless to intercept her and solicit an interview. And there was no use him ringing her doorbell if friends and acquaintances were being turned away on the spot. But then one morning she left the house with black hair. The new colour seemed to have changed her; whereas she’d been stooped before, now he fancied she was walking more upright. He followed her to a fast-food outlet called Big Murphy’s, where she was having a job interview that day, and got the idea of making friends with her.
From all the interviews he conducted as a journalist, he’d developed a keen sense for people. She was someone you had to be patient with. Someone who was lonely. So he made up a role for himself: the uncomplicated, carefree and cheerful Jakob from the recycling centre. A guy who didn’t look as if he’d saddle her with any additional burdens. Who you could just go for a beer with and listen to music. A friend who made it easy to open up, a confidant.
On Christmas Eve he managed it.
They drank, they danced, she talked.
Jakob, who at the end of that evening laid a plastered Ann on the sofa. Covered her and sat beside her for a moment, sweeping strands of her hair from her face. To make sure she really had fallen asleep. Jakob, who made use of an opportunity his rivals could only dream of: snooping around Professor Walter Lesniak’s house undisturbed. He switched off the light and, using the torch on his mobile, roamed every room. He inspected the contents of the cutlery drawer in the kitchen as well as the book spines on the sitting-room shelves. When he was finished on the ground floor he went upstairs. Now he knew which aftershave Lesniak used (‘Fahrenheit’ by Dior) and that Ann didn’t wear tangas (but briefs, with a preference for pink and light grey). But he was most interested in the room at the end of the landing, which surely couldn’t be locked for no reason. Jakob felt the door frame, but didn’t find a key on top. Looking around, he saw the console table in front of the window and opened the drawers. In the left-hand one the Lesniaks kept their candles; in the right, a random selection of small things that didn’t appear to have found a place elsewhere: spare buttons, sellotape, a roll of parcel string, a few CDs. On the shelf beneath the desk were books– shamelessly commercial literature, too unworthy for the shelves in the sitting room. But no key. Jakob had no idea why he now reached for the vase. Coincidence, instinct, or just one final, not particularly serious attempt to convince himself that he had really searched everything in this house? And so he got hold of the key. But at that very moment, he heard noises coming from downstairs. A sigh, a few words babbled in sleep– or was she merely dozing? His eyes darted to the window above the console table. It hadn’t occurred to him that he hadn’t used his mobile-phone torch for a while; it was already light outside. He’d have to come back another time to find out what was behind the locked door. He briefly toyed with the idea of hanging on to the key, but felt it was too risky. What if Ann noticed it was missing? Someone who had good reason to lock a room would also be minded to keep an eye on the key. So he returned it to the vase and went back downstairs. He checked on Ann, who was no longer breathing so deeply and slowly. By the time she woke up– which couldn’t be long now– he had to work out how to get into the house unnoticed next time. When Ann stirred, Jakob darted into the hallway. He thought of those films in which door locks were opened with credit cards. But Jakob wasn’t a cunning Hollywood burglar; he wasn’t capable of that sort of thing. He was, however, a cunning journalist, and as such he had a professional eye for details. Hanging beside the coat hooks was a bunch of keys, including the one for the Audi. Because the car belonged to Walter Lesniak, Jakob could assume the bunch of keys was his too. Each of the five keys had a plastic tag. The red one said ‘Uni office’, the blue one ‘Uni Library’, the green one ‘Garage’ and the yellow one what he’d been looking for: ‘Home’. Jakob fiddled the key off the small metal ring and slipped it into his trouser pocket. Then he made some coffee. For Ann who was going to wake up soon. . .
‘. . . For Ann who he fucked over big time.’ I’m leaning against the work surface, my hands crossed, shaking my head in disbelief. Jakob is sitting at the table. He looks pale, wrecked by what must have been the longest night of his life. The woollen blanket I’ve fetched him from the sitting room is over his shoulders like a coat. He’s warming his hands on a mug of tea. In spite of everything, he doesn’t appear in the least ashamed; while he was talking, he even managed to look me overtly in the eye.
‘As if what you did was any different.’
‘What?’
‘The way you tricked your colleagues at Big Murphy’s.’
‘Oh, I see, and for that you think I deserved this charade.’
‘I’d be very happy to discuss whether I deserved to be locked in my boot for half a day,’ he says, slamming the palms of his hands on the table and getting up. ‘I could have died, Ann!’
‘Sit. Down.’ On the work surface are a knife and my mobile, both within reach. One glance at them is enough, along with the fact that, after last night, he’s no longer able to size me up. I could be Ann who acted on impulse, or Ann who doesn’t care about anything anymore. I might call the police and report him as the intruder from last night, or thrust my knife into his chest. I could even do both, and justify the one thing as self-defence against the other. So he does what I ask and drops back on to his chair.
‘Fine. What now?’
I clench my jaws. I don’t want him to know how I feel. That I can hardly believe how we got into this situation. Him lying there, yesterday evening, at the bottom of our stairs. Me kneeling over him, expecting to discover Marcus Steinhausen’s face beneath the balaclava. Instead it was Jakob, my friend. We’d danced together to Lou Reed. We’d circled like aeroplanes in a blue summer sky. Jakob the traitor. He scratched the record and broke my wings.
Disappointment. (Ann, 9 years old)
